Unravelling
by HDUC
Summary: Sequel to "Pressure" and "Surprise." The Doctor and Martha confiscate some ancient weapons, which do untold damage to the victims and user. The problem is that the "damage" is nondescript, and our heroes soon find that there is more than one way to annihilate the strongest resolve. Oneshot! Adult!
1. Chapter 1

**I'm not TERRIBLY big on the idea of sequels, but this one seemed to fit, as a continuation of "Pressure" and "Surprise," especially the latter. The "unconventional rapport" established between the 10th Doctor and Martha Jones in "Surprise" is something that I felt is still palpable here!**

**This will be only TWO chapters - I shall post the second in the next day or two. **

**Please enjoy!**

* * *

At dusk in a small mountain range on the planet Scalif, Martha Jones watched some kind of ceremony occurring. "What do these things do, again?" she asked the Doctor, staring at a series of what looked like fist-sized rocks, sitting prettily upon a crescent-shaped altar.

Beyond the altar, there was a row of six men in purple robes, staring at the stones as though they might explode and destroy the universe at as they knew it. Beyond them milled a couple dozen humanoids, all of whom were "gorgeous" by Earth's standards, though in a remarkably homogenous and sort of creepy way. Their skin was all the same shade of tan, the women were all within a few inches' height of one another, and ditto for the men. They all wore what looked like untreated leather, some of them covered more than others, and they were concerned about the rocks, looking at them with anxious eyes. A few of them even tried to get past the robed men in order to rescue the artefacts.

The Doctor paused, and then took a deep, quick breath, answering her question, "No-one really knows, Martha, except for this lot. And they're not talking. That's sort of why we're here."

One day earlier, they had been called by the purple robes, an order of monks from the galaxy of Ansafra, who had been trying to confiscate the stones for nigh on three centuries. The monks had taken a vow of silence, and so their "call" came in the form of a telepathic signal to the TARDIS' heart: _Doctor, please come, the abominations have been found_.

Actually, the telepathic signal had been left in the form of a "message," which the Doctor had heeded a couple of hours later, as though the TARDIS were a giant, sentient answerphone. Because, when the signal had come, the Doctor and Martha had been engaged in some business that they felt deserved their full attention, and frankly, they had been in a state of mind and being that dictated that they couldn't have stopped just then, even if they had wanted to. But they really didn't want to.

It had been approximately two months since they had visited the Seventh Planetary Assembly of the Castelooper Galaxy, where farm equipment gone mad had made it necessary for the two of them to expose their vulnerabilities to one another, ending in rather a cathartic life-saving effort on Martha's part. That day, the Doctor had promised to initiate a more intimate relationship with her.

And it had been approximately one month since Martha grew tired of waiting, and had initiated it herself, thus surprising the bejeezus out of the Doctor, and sparking a long-dormant, lustful side of him.

Since then, they had spent their "down" time exploring new ways to surprise each other, and awaken that which had been dormant.

For the moment, though, standing, staring at monks and a buch of beautiful, nervous folks and their precious rocks, one could not say they were having down time. Their minds were on the dull grey stones…

"What are they doing?" Martha whispered to the Doctor. For several minutes, the monks had been staring intently at the stones, and nothing was happening. She was interested in the proceedings, but getting antsy, and wanted to ask a million questions.

"They're blessing the stones," the Doctor said. "And praying for the people of this planet. They're saying _let the fire within these people subside as the abominations are removed from their midst._"

"Can you hear them?" she asked, amazed.

"Yep," he answered. "Loud and clear."

"Are they just chanting really low, like on a frequency I can't perceive, or is it all telepathic?"

"It's telepathic," he told her, making a mighty effort to whisper. "These monks are Ansafrans, from a particular order called Claponti. They believe, like a lot of monks from a lot of different faiths, that the physical world is a trap – one might call it the _mortal coil –_ and they think that the only meaningful existence is mental and spiritual."

"So that's why they do everything without speaking."

"They do everything possible with their minds, without using their bodies," he said. "Including communication. They have even found secret ways to sustain their lives without eating or sleeping, and it's even rumoured that they do all of their travelling astrally. It's fifty-fifty that if you walked over there and tried to put your fist through one of their chests, you could."

At that point, one of the monks gave them a terrible, scolding glance, urging them to shush. For several minutes, the Doctor and Martha were still. The Doctor listened to the blessing while Martha's eyes darted about in the silence, and her mind raced with more questions.

"So what have the stones got to do with that? Why are they confiscating them?" she wanted to know.

"The stones are known as the Retissedandu Rachi, the Unravellers of Life," the Doctor reported gravely. "As I said, no-one really knows what they do, but from context, and from the urgency with which the monks are treating them, it can probably be assumed…"

"…that they're weapons."

"Bingo," he said. "And these are meant to be particularly powerful weapons. It is said that they may ruin the domains of kings and bring down houses of repute."

Martha's eyebrows rose.

"I know," he shrugged. "It's all a bunch of propaganda – doesn't sound like much now, but trust me, it is very well-storied that these things can do damage."

"I see," she all but growled.

"It's all so vague, though," said the Doctor, half to himself. "No actual accounts of the destruction, just a lot of poetic mumbo-jumbo about damage to life, weakening of men, annihilation of the senses, yadda yadda yadda."

"But if the monks believe that the only meaningful existence is mental and spiritual, then why would they care about these weapons? Isn't death preferable to life, in that case?"

"Good point," the Doctor conceded. "But they just chanted about voracity. I think their problem is what these things do to whoever posesses them."

Martha nodded absently, contemplating. She supposed it made a kind of sense. Not any sense with which she was intimately familiar, but it's not like she wasn't accustomed to "religious" types, policing their world with their own rules which they tried to apply to the lives of others. She wanted to feel a bit of righteous indignation, but knew it wasn't her place, and she supposed that's what made her a citizen of Earth, and the Doctor a citizen of the Universe.

* * *

Martha sat upon the stool beside the console, staring at a wooden box, containing six grey stones. The Doctor was trying to find a place to park for a few days, so that they could deal safely with the confiscated weapons.

"Can I look at them?" she asked.

"I don't see why not," he told her, flipping levers and switches. "Just be careful. We don't know what activates them."

She gingerly tipped open the box, and peered inside. Each stone was in its own compartment, lined with soft red velvet.

"They're labelled," she commented.

"Mm."

She stared at each of the labels. None of them made any sense to her. "Why are they not being translated for me?"

The Doctor leaned over and had a look. "Oh, they're in ancient Scalif Heiroglyphics, the language spoken on the planet we were just on… a bazillion years ago when the invertebrates first crawled out of the sludge. Well, I'm exaggerating, but you see what I mean."

"Oh. So the language is too old to be translated."

"Well, that's one reason. The real reason is that Scalif Heiroglyphics are notoriously difficult to translate."

"But I can see…"

"…roman letters? Yeah, the TARDIS is trying, but… actually getting it to translate into modern English for you may not happen. It's like getting a cloud of carbon-based smoke to become a diamond."

"Heh," she chuckled, and then attempted to pronounce the totally foreign names of each of the stones. "Clemana, Spreare, Nolliever, Meplu, Birvre, and Chela. What are these, names?"

"It sounds like descriptions of what each weapon does."

"Really? What does _Clemana_ mean? I mean, roughly… do you think?"

He closed his eyes tightly. "Erm, it's something like… _imprisonment."_

"Okay. What about Spreare?"

"I think… _division._"

"Nolliever?"

He sighed. He was trying to concentrate on a destination, but Martha was not picking up on his slight signs of annoyance… he reckoned he'd better just answer the questions. "Nolliever… that's like… _boiling._ Maybe. _Boiling_ is a bad translation, but…"

"Boiling? Oh my God! What about Meplu?"

"Meplu. Now that one I know. It's _torture._"

"Torture?" she asked, incredulous.

"Yes, but connotatively it's like an insidious torture. Torture with a light touch."

"So, like torture that you don't know is occurring until it's too late? Like a slow-releasing poison?"

"Maybe," he replied, jostling the TARDIS with his ministrations. "I've heard the word in context before, but never seen it applied. I'm telling you – this stuff doesn't translate too well."

"Yikes. What about Birvre?"

"Erm, _shaking_," he said, squinting, staring at the wall. "_Trembling… quake."_

"And Chela?"

"That one is sort of like _unleashing_," he told her. "_Release_."

"Do you think this one just _kills_, flat-out?"

"Sort of sounds like it – _release. Unleash._"

She looked at the six stones distastefully. "Doctor, I don't like the sounds of these."

"Me neither," he agreed, stopping the vessel. He put on the handbrake and looked squarely at her.

"I mean, we have these weapons, the Unravellers of Life, powerful enough to be confiscated by monks who don't believe in physical life anyway… and they are meant to bring about imprisonment, division, boiling, torture, quakes and then release. Frankly, if you believe language is power, these things have already decimated several galaxies inside my mind."

He came round the console and joined her, staring at the rocks in the box.

"Why you, Doctor?" she wanted to know.

"I've been asking myself that question for almost three hundred years, Martha, ever since I first met the monks and they started begging me to help them with the confiscation process," he said. "I mean, I know that the Claponti order cannot harbour these weapons – it would be against their code. Why would they confiscate them in order to take bloodlust from one people, only to have it in their own storehouses? But me… I guess they like me 'cause… I'm clever?"

"And peace-loving?"

"Well…" he said modestly.

"But now that we have them, what are we supposed to do with them?"

"I suppose the best thing to do would be to work out how to make them benign," he told her.

"Do you mean disarm them, or deploy them somewhere where they won't do any harm?"

"Well," he sighed. "Let's find out whether we can do one without the other."

* * *

In a little-used, but necessary, room in the depths of the TARDIS, the duo had the box of rocks sitting open, and they were staring in.

The room seemed made for just such an occasion: the testing out of weapons and other volatile materials. It had what amounted to an airtight tank, perhaps three hundred square feet, climate-controlled, with vaccuum capabilities, both for human/Time Lord use, and for human/Time Lord observation. It also had a similarly-equipped chamber perhaps six square feet, for smaller tasks. Both "tanks" were accompanied by a separate panel of machines and computers, for doing everything from observing, to measuring radiation, to seeing what happens when you poke the subject. On the back of the door hung two haz-mat suits, which were not only impervious to all liquids and gases, but also most heat, sharp objects and friction.

"So, what do we do? Put on the haz-mat suits and throw the rocks in the chamber and try to set them off?" asked Martha, being intentionally obtuse and slightly whimsical. She knew that the process would amount to something much more involved than "throwing" rocks into the chamber and detonating all at once.

Nevertheless, the Doctor gave her a, "Come on now, Miss Jones," sort of expression, while he gingerly took the first rock from the box.

"I don't think haz-mat suits will be necessary," he said. He turned the stone back and forth as he held it with his thumb and index finger and squinted at it closely. "If we start at the _first_ rock, such as it is, then we start with Clemana, or _imprisonment._ I could be wrong, but it doesn't sound like any sort of explosion occurs, or any toxic waste is released… and… well, again, I could be wrong, but I think that wearing a heavily armoured suit that weighs several hundred pounds might actually hinder us getting out of whatever _imprisonment_ this thing has in mind for us."

"Yeah, that's true," she shrugged. "I guess if we have to shimmy out of some kind of trap, or run from closing gates, it would be better if we're unencumbered."

With that, the Doctor shed his suit jacket and tie, and tossed them aside. He looked at Martha, who was still wearing the shorts and tank top she had worn to bed, but who had since pulled a fluffy blue hooded sweatshirt on over it all. He cocked an eyebrow at her, and she smiled sheepishly.

"Would you like me to disrobe?" she asked.

"Please," he answered squarely.

She chuckled and pulled the sweatshirt over her head, tossing it aside with his things.

He handed her the stone. "Here you go."

"What am I supposed to do with it?" she asked, taking it, looking at it with mistrust.

"Go in the chamber," he told her. "Just hold it while I take some readings."

She sighed. "Okay."

She opened the door to the airtight chamber, and stepped inside.

"Okay," he said to her through a microphone. "Just hold it out in front of you."

She obeyed, and the Doctor pressed buttons that shined a bright blue light directly onto the rock in Martha's hand. A humming sound occurred, and the pitch seemed to mount as the Doctor continued to press buttons and frown at the readings.

After a minute, he said, "Oh, that's interesting."

"What is?"

"It's got an S.A.C. A Soufflarige Activation Component."

"Oh, sure, well, that clears it up," she chirped sarcastically.

"It means that it's activated when you blow on it directly."

She frowned at the stone. "Really? Should I do it?"

"Not yet," he said. "Because… it seems like the weapon attacks the person who blows on it. Which is why I can't… what the hell?" He buried the fingers of his right hand in his spiky hair and frowned even more deeply at the readings.

"What kind of a weapon backfires upon the detonator?" she asked, holding the thing out further away from her body.

"I don't know," he answered. "Just stay where you are. I'm coming in."

"Why?" she wondered.

He didn't answer. He checked his pockets to make sure the sonic screwdriver was close at hand, and he stepped into the airtight chamber with Martha.

"Now, whatever happens will happen to us both," he said. "I don't think it will be too big – I didn't see any evidence of Batoyer technology, so…"

"And that would be?"

"Technology that allows a _thing_, an inanimate object, to detonate in order to build something," he told her. "Say, like a cage or a prison. There's just a bit of holographic steel inside, so whatever it is, it's going to be pretty ephemeral."

"Holographic steel?"

"Yes."

"Whatever you say," she sighed. "Shall I?"

He nodded.

She softly blew some air directly onto the rock in her hand. Within a second, the Doctor was saying, "Oh! Look at that." He was looking at a spot behind her on the floor.

She tried to turn to see what he was seeing, but she could not. "I'm stuck," she said. "I can't move."

He continued to stare. A pole was rising up from the floor, about six inches behind where Martha was standing. It grew to the height of the ceiling and stopped. Then, Martha seemed to be able to move again, only she had her hands behind her back.

"So you can move?" he asked.

"Sort of," she said. She swayed her shoulders and bent her knees slightly. "But my hands are tied back."

"Hm," he commented. He reached out and touched her wrists. "Yeah, you're like… shackled to the pole."

"So Clemana is _restraint_."

"I suppose so," he said. "Imprisonment, restraint… yeah. Like I said, it's rough trying to translate these things."

"So should we try the next one?"

"Spreare," he mused. "_Division._ What if it tries to make us break up?"

"That's what the sonic is for," she quipped.

He smirked and walked toward the door. "Martha, it's a screwdriver. It doesn't fix relationships – it's not _that_ good."

He exited the chamber, and retrieved the second stone. He set it on the floor in the chamber, then exited again to take more readings. Once again, a blue light shined on it.

"This one is similar," he said. "A bit of holographic steel, but nothing huge."

He came back into the chamber. He held the stone out to her. "Would you mind blowing on it again? Whatever happens, I want to have my wits about me. You never know."

She blew onto the second stone, and again, within a second something happened. She let out a squeak, as her ankles seemed to be forced apart. She stood, invisibly shackled to a pole, with her legs spread.

"Can you put your ankles back together?" he asked.

She tried. "No way," she answered. "So, _division_ means… what, spreading of the limbs? Am I going to be stretched to the limit and broken?"

He looked her up and down with his mouth open. He appeared to be exhibiting disbelief. "Oh, my…" he mused.

"What?"

His eyes made their way leisurely over her bare legs and tight top, and eventually met hers. He smiled with mischief in his eyes. "I know what these stones are for."


	2. Chapter 2

PART 2

He smiled with mischief in his eyes. "I know what these stones are for."

At the naughtiness in his expression, Martha's jaw dropped. "Ohhhh…" she said with realisation.

"Of course, it's just a theory. The next stone is Nolliever," he reminded her. "_Boiling_. Want to see what it does?"

"Okay," she choked.

He left, and came back with another stone. He didn't scan it this time, he simply held it out to her.

"Do you know what's going to happen?" she asked, with a small voice.

"I have an idea," he said, with a smirk.

She blew on the third stone, the _boiling_ stone, and immediately, her eyes closed, her mouth hung slack, and she let out a deep, languorous moan. She leaned back against the pole as she seemed to lose the strength in her knees for a few moments. She slumped down as her breathing quickened, and her body caught fire.

A rush of heat was just the beginning. She found herself burning from the inside with searing, driving desire, and felt moisture start to flow between her legs.

So _that's_ what these stones were for.

"_Boiling,"_ he whispered to her.

"_Whoooo,_" she exhaled sensually. "Yes. All over. Do you feel it?"

"Oh yes," he answered with a gravelly voice, looking her over, watching her helpless, writhing, burning. "But not because of the stone."

He smiled and stepped forward, pressing himself into her, against the pole, driving his tongue into her mouth. He slid his arms down over her bum and reached behind the fabric of her shorts to squeeze the warm flesh. She tugged at her arms, longing to put her arms around him as well, but she was, of course, restrained. She wanted so badly to squeeze her body together, to fight the desire, to push herself against him, but her legs were restrained also. She absently thought, as the Doctor's mouth, slid down the side of her face and across her neck, I wonder what the hell the _torture_ stone does.

He pulled away, so his lips were about an inch from her face. "No wonder the monks want these things taken off the streets," he whispered with another mischievous smile.

"They don't believe in lust," she replied breathlessly.

"They don't know what they're missing," he pointed out, letting his tongue snake out to lick her bottom lip.

"Monks never do."

"The stones are called the _Unravellers of Life_," he said. "Could it be that it's another bad translation, that it's _undoers of flesh_?"

"I'm coming undone," she pointed out. "I'd say that's a fair assessment."

"I could see this bringing down the domains of kings…"

"…doing damage, annihilating powerful men…"

"…and women," he added with a smile. He placed the boiling stone in front of her lips once more and she blew. Once more, a wave of painful, searing, exquisite heat came over her, and she wanted nothing more than to be taken. Now. Hard.

But she knew that torture was first.

He hungrily caught her mouth with his once more, and sucked at her lips voraciously. Both of them moaned heavily, and while the Doctor laid his hands all over her, she was held back, only to wish.

When he pulled away this time, he said to her, "Meplu. _Torture_. With a light touch."

She could not speak, only groaned once more, and leaned against the pole for support. He left again, and came back with stone number four. He held it out to her, and she blew. Although this time, nothing happened. For a few seconds, the Doctor looked at the stone with a frown, and then, he blew on it himself.

Then he smiled wickedly.

With both hands he reached out and pushed her tank top up, so that her midriff was exposed. And then, without touching her at all, he dragged his fingertips across the front of her, miming tickling.

She twisted, and let out a yelp. "Oh! What is that? It feels like a feather!"

"Yeah?" he asked, smirking. "Interesting."

He used the invisible feather's touch across her midriff again and then round her ears and eyes, and down her neck. She twitched and giggled, asked him to stop. He said nothing, only gazed hard into her eyes and relished in the "light" torture.

He reached forward once more and pushed her tank top up, over her shoulders, over her head, and let it wrap tightly round the back of her neck. Her breasts jutted out with alertness, her lips hung slack with the pure lusty anticipation of what he was about to do, and her eyes registered anxiousness.

She felt the feather touch swirl around the widest part of her breasts, the part that meets her body. And then the touch came outward, round and round and round. When finally the touch reached her nipples, she was breathless and her body buckled once more, her knees giving out momentarily. She moaned, letting an expletive fly with total abandon.

The Doctor moved down her body and began teasing her thighs, just at the spot where the fabric from her shorts ended, and exposed her perfect brown legs. She found this almost unbearable, and another expletive tumbled out, along with another moan, and a good yank at her restraints. He moved inward to the most sensitive part of her thighs, and after a few seconds, reached forward and slid his fingers inside the waistband of her shorts. He pulled them down until her spread legs wouldn't let them go any further – but it was far enough.

He teased her inner thighs again, moving the invisible feather back and forth slowly, then quickly. The litany of filthy words that came out of her then delighted him, made him smile, made him feel powerful. Liquid dripped down the inside of her thighs and she writhed against her invisible cuffs. Her clit stuck out from behind her swollen folds, all pink and slick, and he gave a quick swipe at it with the torturous light touch, nearly bringing her to her knees. Then he did it again, and then again. She jerked and swore each time, and begged him to stop, and finish her off.

Abruptly, he did stop, and he left the room. When he returned, he had another stone in his hand.

"Birvre," he said to her, his breathless voice (and raging erection) betraying his own lust. "Quake. Tremble."

He blew on it, knowing exactly what it would do.

He reached out and touched both her nipples lightly with two fingers from each hand, and immediately, all four fingers began to buzz, hum… vibrate.

"Oh, my God," she moaned. She leaned back against the pole and closed her eyes, unable to keep any impetus about her whatsoever. Shock waves pulsed through her body, from her nipples all the way down between her legs. She moaned with the sensation, and with the anticipation of what was to come, of what she knew the Doctor would make her _wait_ for.

He stepped forward and once again, slid his arms around her and his tongue into her mouth. He probed, noticing how hot her mouth was, how voraciously and hungrily she was clawing at him with her lips and tongue. He slid his palms down over her perfect round bottom, feeling the smooth, soft skin sail by like silk. And he reached down and very subtly slipped both of his index fingers between her legs, just below the curve of her bum, and just behind her swollen pink lips. His fingers vibrated there, unmoving, and he took great pleasure in feeling her twitch and writhe while trying to suck his tongue, and stay standing.

He licked the sensitive area at her jugular, pressing her into the pole, his own hardness driving urgently against her stomach.

"For God's sake…" she breathed.

"What?" he asked, his voice hot against her neck.

"Just…"

"What do you want?" he asked.

She didn't answer, _could _not answer.

"This?" he asked, pressing his fingers harder into the flesh between her legs. His arms pulled her close to him, flush up against him, and every part of him that throbbed or felt hot, she could feel it.

She let out a weak cry, and threw her head back. She cursed again and called him a name, which made him chuckle.

"This?" he asked. He took a step back and pressed two fingers against her clavicle, his magical digits vibrating against the bone. He began pulling his fingers down her chest, infuriatingly slowly. As he passed between her breasts, he leaned down and flicked each nipple with his tongue, only twice, making her body jolt.

As the vibrating fingers reached her navel, he swirled them around, and she took in a sharp breath and held it. He looked at her face with innocent inquiry, and she bit her lip and scowled at him.

"Oh, I know what it is that you want," he mused, letting his fingers meander down her abdomen, again, so slowly it made her want to scream. If she had had any one of her four limbs free, she might have struck him. "This," he said.

With that, he thrust the two fingers against her clit. Immediately, with no ceremony nor warning, she let out an unrestrained cry, and she came. Her body shook, her hips thrust forward against his quaking touch, and more fluid leaked down the inside of her leg.

But he didn't stop there, didn't stop touching her. Even as her knees gave out again and she slumped down, he kept pressing those fingers into her sensitive flesh. She jerked and writhed. "Ugh, stop," she demanded. "Take it away!"

He shook his head, and once again, pressed her into the pole and shoved his tongue into her mouth. The vibration did not let up, and even as she felt the discomfort of her plundered flesh reeling against it, she felt her body on the rise for a second time. He pushed harder and whispered in her ear, "Come on now, do it again." It didn't take much more encouragement, and she was flying over the edge, coming again, gushing, cursing, trembling like a leaf.

She pulled in a hard breath through her teeth as she came down from this high, and the Doctor looked her squarely in the eye.

"Whoa. Fuck me," she growled, her words clipped and slow, her voice low and clear. It was more of an expletive than a command, though she wasn't entirely surprised that he chose to interpret it as the latter.

"Oh, I plan to," he told her lightly. "But you have just a bit more work to do first. Then, I can spend the rest of the afternoon with your legs wrapped around me." He showed her the two buzzing fingers.

"If you do that again," she panted. "I'll be spent. It'll be like shagging a ragdoll."

"I'm sure you'll draw strength from somewhere," he assured her with a sweet, indulgent smile.

And once more, he approached her, brandishing the weapons, the fingers-cum-vibrators which had already effectively unravelled her and annihilated her resolve.

She moaned before he even touched her. This time, he surprised her by not stopping at just pressing the tools against her clit. This time, he pushed them inside her, into her liquid, molten crevasse, and she moaned even more deeply. He hooked the fingers upward, just behind her pelvic bone, and high-pitched cries began to emmanate from her mouth. Four-letter words came out, harsh pleas to dieties, even a couple of half-hearted demands for him to stop (which she didn't mean), all of which presaged an explosion which she couldn't contain. She pulled at her restraints so hard that her wrists and ankles turned white, around the places where invisible bands kept her tied. Tears rolled out, and a scream escaped, as her entire body went _pop_. It was an orgasm that should have ended it all, might have made her pass out, and felt as if it could have shaken the entire TARDIS.

She was left slumped and panting, though the Doctor held her up with one arm around her waist.

When she caught her breath, she looked up at him. "Cut me loose. Right now."

"Of course," he agreed. Calmly, he left the chamber and came back with the final stone: Chela. Release. He held it in front of her, and she blew on it. With that, the pole disappeared, and the restraints keeping her tied up and her legs spread, disappeared. She fell forward, and he caught her.

He worked her down onto the floor, onto her back. He pulled at the shorts which had been slung unceremoniously around her upper thighs, and brought them down over her shoes and tossed them away. He hovered over her, gazing semi-helplessly at her with intensity, with his hands planted on either side of her head, and relied on her to unbutton and unzip him.

"See? Not a ragdoll," he told her, just before thrusting inside her, and moaning with relief.

She gasped at the onslaught and hissed, "Indeed not."

He whispered her name over and over as he pushed in and out artlessly, voraciously, needing each forward movement more than the last. To her surprise, she was still strong enough to relish each movement, even appreciate the mindlessness of it, the feeling of being needed and wanted with someone's whole body and being, and _right_ _now_. And she let it take her again to the top, and over. Now, at the fourth time, her eyes practically crossed as she came, and her body almost didn't know where to put all of the pleasure, as though her legs and arms and head were too full to accommodate so much. Once again, she went _pop_, and let out a nice, tight cry.

As if that were a cue to him, his thrusts gained in intensity, just as her answering thrusts waned. He buried his nose and mouth in her neck and hair, and though he felt her body give way, go limp and lose strength, he couldn't stop. But he knew she wanted it – she _always_ wanted it, no matter how many times she'd come or how weak she became. She always wanted it, he could see it in her eyes whenever she looked at him. Sometimes it lay dormant, but it never took much to bring it to the surface, that desire, the long-incubating hunger that seemed to posess her in these moments, turn her into an insatiable sex goddess and make her say uncharacteristically filthy things. So he gritted his teeth and fucked her hard, with no holding back, no longer any particular thought or consideration, with satisfaction the only thing on his mind.

Because after the torture he'd put them both through, he needed this, needed to devour and release. Specifically, he needed _her_, needed to have _her_ and release inside of _her,_ and no one else. She was the one who had brought this out in him two months ago – this pleasure was her fault, the lust was her fault, the sex, the fantasies, this out-of-control, driving need to _possess_ . And it felt fantastic. Explosive and ecstatic. He knew she loved him, and now he seriously wondered if he loved her as well, or if he just _loved her for this_. He knew he cared about her, craved her, had over-the-top strong feelings for her, sometimes wanted to _own _her and more often than not wanted to tear her clothes off. But loved her?

Perhaps now. Right there, on the floor, fucking her madly into the cold tile, grunting in her ear, listening to her pant and whimper… perhaps he loved her now.

He'd revisit that question later, because for the moment it didn't matter. He was in her thrall, or in the thrall of _something_, and he was teetering on the edge.

And then he fell hard. Tumbling from the edge into the crevasse, he found himself in the throes of absolute electric, blinding pleasure. He groaned as if someone had hit him in the stomach, and gave her everything then, unleashed in her, filled her up, and heard her whisper "yessssss," as he did. It felt like a thousand waves over his body, pulling him loose, drawing out his release.

Before he was quite spent, while there were still deep pulsations going on inside, he opened his eyes and looked at her. Her hair was spread out over the floor like a stringy mop, and her face was covered with sweat. She was flushed and pink in her cheeks and had tears in her eyes. Her mouth hung slack, and she was at a loss for words. With her brilliant mind, filled with at least two languages, including medical terminology and some time-and-space jargon, she could think of no words to say just now.

And yet, even as he came down from the most intense and contemplative orgasm of his very long life, he had never wanted anyone more. And he knew he'd do _anything_ to have her.

Yes, even now. He'd have her again and again... and again.

Those bloody stones. He was effectively undone, and he _liked_ it.

"You know," she said with a slight smile, still panting, her cogence returning. "It just so happened that I was the first to blow on the Clemana stone, the restraint. It could have been you."

He chuckled. "It could have, you're right."

"Still could be."

"Very true," he agreed. He rolled onto his side and rested his head in his hand. "But there is a legend that says that this kit is not the only of its kind. There are other _abominations_ out there, other _weapons_ that need confiscating. This one came from Scalif, but there are Roneog people who are equally threatening, who are said to be harbouring a box of rope that does something unspecified in the logs of the Claponti order. I'd wager I know why it's unspecified."

"Very intriguing, Doctor. But didn't it take three hundred years to track_ these _weapons down?"

"Yeah, but it's not like I was the one looking for them. I bet I could cut that time down considerably. I can put some feelers out right now."

She smiled. "Okay, you do that. But in the meantime, we'll have to tide ourselves over with this set."

"I'll look forward to it."

"Good, but not for long, because you're going to meet me in your bedroom in twenty minutes."

"Don't we have a planet to save, or something?" he asked half-heartedly.

"Probably, but it'll wait – we have a time machine, for God's sake. Why are we always in such a rush?"

He laughed. "Good point."

"Twenty minutes, and prepare for unrestrained, restrained torture."

"Oh, torture. How can I resist?"

She grabbed his collar and pulled him in for a juicy kiss. "You can't."

Yep, unravelled. Those bloody stones.


End file.
